I am visiting China with Marie and Otis. I have never been to Shanghai and I am excited to be visiting the ancient, historical city. Most of the places I have been in reality in China are modern cities, but here I will get to see traditional buildings, crafts, dress, etc. We are on foot and we come up over a hill. A giant, golden city rises up before us and I am blown away by the traditional architecture, design, and grandeur. We start to walk across a wide bridge leading into the city.
We scold Otis gently for walking ahead of us in his way, which pisses him off and causes him to wander away from us down a side road (on a bridge?) as we walk ahead. To our left I see a long, shallow ship in the water. I noticing it listing to the side and see its cargo sliding off into the river. It is carrying giant, shallow baskets the size of cars. They look like they should be small baskets, but they are giant.
As the baskets slide into the water, the ship flips over and the movement causes part of the ship to hit a nearby brick building which I understand to be a factory. The building begins to collapse onto the occupants. I suddenly realize that all the neighboring buildings will be at risk of collapsing. I don't think any buildings will fall on us, but I'm afraid there will be a stampede of people trying to escape and emergency vehicles trying to come in. I tell Marie that we need to hurry! But, where is Otis? We can't see him, and if we turn back to go through the side streets hunting for him, we will be trampled! We realize we have to leave him, so we run ahead and duck into a safe building. Wounded people start to come in along with paramedics and doctors. I offer to put pressure on wounds or help in any way I can, but they don't seem to need me.
We are hunkered in this building for several hours when I realize the baby isn't with me. Where is LeGrand?!? I know she's safe, but I don't know exactly where she is or how to find her. I start walking to try and find Otis and LeGrand, leaving Marie behind. I have a paper with me with a description of LeGrand and I think it will help me match up with her and be united. I find a government center and try to remember how to say "Does anyone here speak English?" in Mandarin. I only vaguely ever had any knowledge of how to say that from a brief language learning program I tried. Then I realized that if I said it in English, someone would either understand me or not. They found a woman who could understand me and she brought me to LeGrand. I described Otis to someone else and the said they think a man like that had been rescued.
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